“I’m a liberal Democrat. And I do not favor same-sex marriage. Do those two statements sound contradictory?” Seemingly, yet they were made by David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, in a recent Los Angeles Times op ed. Blankenhorn concludes, “For healthy development, what a child needs more than anything else is the mother and father who together made the child, who love the child and love each other.”

Blankenhorn states, “Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. Marriage says to society as a whole: For every child born, there is a recognized mother and a father, accountable to the child and to each other.”

So why does changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions cause a problem?

Blankenhorn poses the following questions:

“Do you think that every child deserves his mother and father, with adoption available for those children whose natural parents cannot care for them?

Do you suspect that fathers and m others are different from one another?

Do you imagine that biological ties matter to children?

How many parents per child is best?

Do you think that “two” is a better answer than one, three, four or whatever?”

“If you do,” Blankenhorn says,” be careful. In making the case for same-sex marriage, more than a few grown-ups will be quite willing to question your integrity and goodwill. Children, of course, are rarely consulted.”

Blankenhorn believes that by changing the meaning of marriage, it changes the gift that only the union of husband and wife brings to every child born: his or her birthright. Marriage “safeguards that right” of the child to the mother and father who made him or her.